Riven #3
I still, my breath hitching as I watch her unravel, her face transformed by pleasure. My hips jerk involuntarily, grinding deeper, and I feel the pulse of my own release building, catching fire at the base of my spine.
But I stop it. Force it back. My entire body seizes with the effort, every muscle locking, thighs trembling, a choked sound tearing from my throat as I pull back from the edge through sheer willpower alone.
“No,” I grit out, forehead dropping to her shoulder. “Not yet. I need—” My arms shake with the strain, breath coming in shallow, broken gasps. “I need to feel you do that again.”
“Riven,” she whispers, cradling my face, brushing her thumbs across my cheeks. Her touch is so gentle it threatens to break me. “You’re safe with me. You don’t have to hold back.”
My eyes squeeze shut. My jaw clenches. I stay buried deep inside her, fighting against the pleasure that threatens to overwhelm me. I can feel her body still fluttering around me, each small movement sending shocks of sensation through my entire being.
“Let me give this to you,” I whisper, opening my eyes to meet hers.
This isn’t about control anymore—not the way she might think.
It’s about giving her everything I am, everything I have.
Showing her that her pleasure matters more than my own.
That I’m more than the cold, insufferably arrogant prince she first met. “And then I’ll let myself fall.”
She nods, throat working with emotion, and that’s all I need.
A groan tears from deep in my chest as I pull out slowly—the drag of her body around mine nearly my undoing—and thrust back in with a precision honed through years of discipline.
Every stroke is calculated to bring her the most pleasure, grinding against that spot inside her that makes her gasp and tremble.
I pin her with my weight, one arm braced beside her head, the other hand sliding between our bodies to find her most sensitive point between her legs.
I circle it slowly, in time with my movements, and she cries out—the sound sending a surge of satisfaction through me that’s more powerful than any release could be.
She claws at my back, hips rising to meet every thrust, every touch. I can feel her building again, faster this time, her magic responding in kind—water droplets forming and rising around us, suspended in the air like tiny stars.
“I can’t—” she gasps, voice breaking.
“Yes, you can.” I drive into her with the full force of my need, jaw clenched against my own building pleasure. My fingers work in tandem with my thrusts, drawing her closer, tighter, until she’s trembling beneath me.
A cry rips from her throat as her body convulses a second time, inner walls fluttering, clenching around me so hard that a shudder runs through my entire body. Her magic lashes out—water bursting from her in a radiant surge that arcs across the cave ceiling, catching the light like liquid diamonds.
The sight of her undone—the feel of her pulsing around me—finally breaks the last of my control.
A groan tears from somewhere deep inside me, from that wounded place I’ve kept hidden for so long.
My rhythm falters as I bury myself deep inside her, my release overtaking me in waves of pleasure so intense that ice magic fractures across the floor in wild, uncontained bursts as I spill myself inside her, hips grinding against hers as I ride out the aftershocks, my breath coming in harsh gasps.
My arms tremble with the effort of holding myself above her, my body wracked with pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
When it subsides, I collapse onto her, burying my face in her neck. I don’t pull out. Don’t move. I just hold her—arms locked tight around her, like she might disappear into thin air if I let go.
“I’m yours,” I whisper against her skin, the words torn from the deepest part of me. “Always, Sapphire. Yours.”
But my voice shakes, betraying the fear still lingering beneath the surface.
I clutch her tighter, unable to stop myself.
Some part of me is convinced that this is temporary—that like everything else good in my life, she’ll be taken from me.
That I’ll wake up tomorrow and find this was nothing but a dream, or worse, that she’ll regret what we’ve done.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she says, as if reading my thoughts.
My breath stutters in my chest—hope warring with a lifetime of disappointment, of loss, of learning that nothing good ever lasts.
“Even if you think this was a mistake tomorrow?” I ask. “Even if you wake up and wish you hadn’t...” I trail off, unable to finish the thought. But the fear is there, trembling through my body, the need for reassurance I’ve never allowed myself to ask for.
She cups my jaw, turning my face toward hers, forcing me to meet her gaze. “Do you really think I could feel everything we just felt and walk away like it meant nothing?”
I stare at her, disbelieving and desperate. The guards I’ve kept up around my heart for my entire life are gone now, leaving only raw truth exposed.
“I don’t think I could take it if you did,” I admit—a whisper, a confession, a breaking point.
She tightens her legs around me, keeping me locked inside her. Holding me there. Grounding me in her.
“You don’t have to take losing me,” she says, steady and certain. “Because you’re not going to.”
I go still, her words cracking something open inside me—something that’s been sealed shut for so long I’d forgotten it existed. Hope. Real hope, not the desperate kind that comes before disappointment, but something solid. Something I might actually be allowed to keep.
I raise my head just enough to look at her—really look at her. Searching her eyes for any hint of doubt or uncertainty, and finding none.
My hand cradles the back of her neck, thumb brushing over her jaw as I claim her lips again—slow, steady, and breath-stealing. I kiss her like I’m drowning and she’s air. Like if I pour enough of myself into it, she might understand everything I can’t say. Everything I’m afraid to believe.
When I eventually pull back, it’s only far enough to rest my forehead against hers. My breathing is still ragged, my voice barely a whisper when I speak.
“Don’t let go.”
It’s not a command. It’s a plea—one I’ve never allowed myself to make before. Not to anyone.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises, soft but sure.
And in the quiet that follows—just our breathing, our heartbeats, and the slight shifts of our bodies still joined—I feel something change. Not in the world around us, but in me.
Because the ice that’s encased my heart for so long is beginning to thaw, melting away under the warmth of her touch, her gaze, and her promise.
For the first time since I lost my mother and watched my father shatter under the weight of his grief, I allow myself to believe that maybe—just maybe—love doesn’t have to end in loss.
That maybe, with Sapphire, I’ve found something worth the risk of breaking.